


In Space (You And Me And Atmosphere)

by luninosity



Series: in space [1]
Category: Actor RPF, Marvel Cinematic Universe RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Space, Astronaut!Sebastian, Astronauts, Commitment, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, First Dates, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Mutual Masturbation, Phone Sex, Sexual Content, Skype, True Love, artist!Chris, by which i mean skype sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-28
Updated: 2014-07-28
Packaged: 2018-02-10 20:40:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2039373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chris’ boyfriend’s an astronaut. And Chris is planning a surprise for when he comes home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Space (You And Me And Atmosphere)

**Author's Note:**

> No harm intended, only doing this out of affection! 
> 
> Title from Ludo's "In Space," this time.
> 
> All the experiments that Sebastian mentions have been done/are being done on the ISS.
> 
> Sebastian Stan has talked on multiple occasions about wanting to be an astronaut, and Chris Evans said in one of the fan Q&As that he was interested in art, and specifically in art for animation, like old-style Disney, and if he wasn't acting or directing he'd probably do that. So...that's what they do. :-)

Chris’ boyfriend’s an astronaut.  
  
Chris never does get tired of saying that. Makes his chest glow; makes him want to laugh, because really, who gets to say that, who gets to _have_ that, to say those words? His boyfriend’s Sebastian Stan, America’s current space-opera darling, adored for that slow curving smile and cheeky instagram photos from the International Space Station, astronaut and professional unabashed geek and equally unabashed partner who uploads videos to NASA’s official website of himself saying _I love you THIS MUCH, Chris_ in front of an infinite star-field, arms spread wide, on Valentine’s Day.  
  
Chris had laughed for five minutes straight at his desk. And then had had to put his head in his arms and cry for another five.  
  
He knows that’s sappy and ridiculous. He doesn’t care. Sebastian loves him.  
  
Sebastian’s been gone for four months this time. Four months and two weeks and three days; and the usual aching loneliness has settled into his bones like a familiar friend, though this time around it’s mitigated by a certain secret, one Sebastian doesn’t know but will in just over one more month.  
  
Chris, at home in their New York apartment—he could’ve gone to their place in Boston, could’ve gone to see his mother and siblings, could’ve flown out to California to do work in the actual animation studio headquarters for once, but he’s got reasons for being here—throws a glance at the dresser and the scattered sketches atop it. Grins.  
  
The sketches grin back. They know the secret. They’re keeping it, bubbling over with conspiratorial joy, in ring-shaped pencil-lines and classically simple design ideas.  
  
He vaults onto the bed, grabs the laptop, opens Skype. Two minutes. He hasn’t been able to stop grinning, and so ends up leering at the laptop screen, but the computer’s used to that by now and doesn’t complain.  
  
Sebastian pops on, that marvelous welcoming bubble-sound of familiar name. Exactly on time. Of course.  
  
The video call flickers into slightly delayed pixilated existence. Technology. It’s a miracle. A miracle he’s thankful for every day. Not quite the same way he’s thankful for blue-topaz eyes and that Romanian-mist-behind-New-York-skyscrapers accent, not the way he wakes up every morning amazed all over again that this is his life, but undeniable still: boundless gratitude.  
  
The picture stops being fuzzy and decides to behave. On the other side, up in space, Sebastian’s smiling.  
  
That smile, as ever, knocks Chris’ heart sideways into breathless delight. For a second he can’t even think. Pierced by joy.  
  
“What,” Sebastian says, teasing, head tipped to one side, “not saying hello? And here I thought you might’ve missed me.”  
  
“I love you,” Chris says, whole heart in the words. “I love you.”  
  
“ _Te iubesc,_ yes, I love you.” Sebastian stretches out a fingertip. Touches his iPad screen, miles away. “Of course you do. And I do. How was your day?”  
  
“Mostly brainstorming,” Chris sighs. Sebastian, even from orbit, can tell when he’s restless or unfulfilled. Knows, every time. Knows him. Profoundly.  
  
Sebastian raises eyebrows, inviting more, and curls up in whatever out-of-the-way spot he’s chosen. Looks like one of the observation windows; the Earth hangs luminous and serene as a jewel at the edge of the video.  
  
“I didn’t get to draw much,” Chris clarifies, trying not to grumble. He loves working for Pixar, he really truly does; he loves the animation process and the elation of bringing characters to life. He’s a good artist and he knows he is. The problem comes between projects, when they sit around in conference rooms—himself Skyping in, at the moment, from New York, since no one cares where he works as long as he gets drawings scanned into the computer on time—and collectively try to have the _next_ great idea. “All talking. And so many sequels. I want to do—I don’t know, y’know? Something different. Something more old-fashioned. I don’t have a good idea yet though.”  
  
“Hmm.” Sebastian listens thoughtfully, the way Sebastian always listens. The way Sebastian wants to listen, when Chris tells him all the day’s stories, good and bad and startling and mundane.  
  
It’d taken them months, early on, to work through that one. Chris had tried to shoulder it all, to dismiss stress and everyday irritations on his end as unimportant—Sebastian’s in _space_ , risking his life every moment, thin fragile layers of metal and plastic between his body and the void—and it’d needed an actual shouting fight to get those emotions sorted out, angry Romanian phrases slipping into English anguish. Tell me, Sebastian’d demanded. Tell me what you’re thinking, if you’re not okay, if you’re feeling anxious. I want to know, I know I can’t hold you but I can listen, if it’s important to you it’s important to us and I love you and it’s killing me not to know when you’re hurt, so tell me, tell me everything, please.  
  
“Old-fashioned, you said.” Sebastian runs a hand through his hair. He’s wearing the standard NASA-logo polo shirt and khakis, and naturally managing to look like a sinfully disreputable high-fashion model regardless. Stars shine in the background. Not warmer than his eyes. “Like…the classic Disney, the fairy-tales, sort of old-fashioned? Is it a story issue?”  
  
Chris sighs again. Shifts weight, cross-legged, on the bed. “Not more fairy-tales, Disney’s got that cornered…but something like that, yeah. Just a simple kind of clear-cut story. Somethin’ with a good heart. Not going for laughs or a heavy message or anything.”  
  
“Earnest.”  
  
“Yeah. That’s…a good word. I like it.”  
  
“It suits you,” Sebastian agrees, and stretches, cat-like and content. Chris, watching, is overcome by a wave of impossible lust.  
  
Earnest. Yes. Sebastian’s good with words, better than Chris himself, better than Sebastian in fact knows. Sebastian’s been somewhat flummoxed by the sheer volume of media attention and his inadvertent unofficial appointment as space-program spokesperson; publicists have chattered about his demographic appeal, about his story and his genuine passion, so apparent on camera. Sebastian, they say, is an American hero with whom everyone can empathize: an emigrant who loves New York and speaks four languages with fluid grace, a boy who’d escaped the chilly secret-police world of Communist Romania for the freedom of America, a film-star handsome man who’s captured imaginations across the country by posting photos and updates and snapshots of life—of _living_ , performing zero-gravity fire-extinguisher experiments, playing a one-handed iPad-piano-keyboard adaptation of Gustav Holt’s _The Planets_ to the Earth below and laughing at himself, being shamelessly sappily in love with Chris—in space.  
  
All of this is true. Chris would never argue those points. Chris thinks that the publicists are missing the rest, though, the more important pieces.  
  
The kindness. The sweet shy wicked sense of humor. The way Sebastian’s eyes light up when embarking on discussions of solar eclipses and Martian seasons and far-off quasars. Sebastian always protests his own awkwardness on camera, the hesitation before the smiles— _oh, you really ARE interested? you want to talk to ME?—_ and the occasional tripping over the exact right English word. But it’s honest, it’s all honest, every bit of bashful gorgeous enthusiasm and exuberant hand-gestures and laughing eyes that turn serious and bright when he answers questions about his mother, about his partner, about having people to come home to.  
  
America adores him. The rest of the world adores him. They’re all allowed. Chris gets to adore him _more_.  
  
Chris gets to, incredibly, be adored in return.  
  
He glances at those sketches again.  
  
Maybe he can convince the studio to tell a story about an astronaut. A lonely astronaut who makes friends, perhaps, with an equally lonely friendly twinkling star.  
  
The first time Sebastian’d left, not the first time Sebastian’d _ever_ left but the first since they’d moved in together, since it’d become about forever instead of afternoon coffee dates and long weekends, Chris had kissed him goodbye with every desperate unvoiced fear and hope snarled in his throat. Had watched the launch from the observers’ platform while shaking head to toe.  
  
He’d come home and walked through the door and stared at Sebastian’s colorful science-fiction paperbacks, at the trash can containing street-vendor hot-dog wrappers because Sebastian has an inexplicable love for that quintessentially American food, at the sofa on which they’d made love lazily the previous afternoon. And he’d thought about months of walking through the door to the ghost of Sebastian’s smile. And he’d ended up collapsed onto that long-suffering sofa, preemptive hollowness scorching his chest and spilling from his eyes and soaking the closest cushion.  
  
After a while he’d pulled himself sufficiently together to call his brother, because he was self-aware enough to recognize the impending anxiety attack and to summon support before he got to the point of assuming no one’d come. Scott had arrived with pizza and a brand-new laptop, had proceeded to feed him the one and flip open the other, and, at Chris’s quizzical look, had explained unhelpfully, “yeah, he thought you might not be okay, so he was hiding this at my place.” Chris had said, “what?” while the cold knot of _he left and I’m alone and what if he never makes it home and what if there’s nothing I can do oh God how can there be nothing I can do when I love him so much it frightens me_ slowly thawed a fraction inside his chest.  
  
Sebastian’d bought him the laptop. With prerecorded videos, obviously sneakily filmed at their apartment while he’d been out, already parked in a folder on the desktop. They’d been labeled things like _open me on our next month’s anniversary_ and _open me when you need a hug_ and _open me when you’re alone in our bedroom, seriously alone, please, no sharing._ Chris had put a hand over his mouth, and felt that tangle of emotion crack open and bleed warmth and helpless eternal love all through his body.  
  
Scott had of course attempted to get him to open the bedroom one. Chris had flat-out refused, but had opened the one about needing a hug. This proved to be Sebastian, with a very grave expression, regarding one of the plush toys based on Chris’ designs for the third Monsters Incorporated movie, the one with blue-black fluffy fur and three eyes and floppy ears, and saying to it, “okay, so you can’t fit into my bag, I’m very sorry, _Îme pare rău,_ I’d love to take you, but I think you have a more important job, you have my job for now, all right? And you have to deliver this message,” and then hugging it with heartbreaking solemn determination, hugging it with all his might, and _then_ looking back at the camera and adding, “Chris, go check your side of our bed.”  
  
Chris had. Of course the stuffed animal’d been sitting gleefully atop his pillow. Three eyes and floppy ears and all.  
  
It’s sitting on Sebastian’s side of the bed now.  
  
“I miss you,” Sebastian murmurs, reaching toward the camera again, unexpectedly plaintive. “I also miss Starbucks. And fresh blueberries. But mostly I miss you.”  
  
Chris leans a little closer. “Everything okay, kid?”  
  
This prompts a quiet laugh, a flush, a glance away; Chris is teasing and they both know it, know the way that that’s become a shared secret joke, the way Sebastian’d once admitted to having mostly had crushes on older authoritative possessive men and Chris had promptly grown out his beard and indulged in every single proprietary instinct he’d ever had, arms draped around Sebastian’s shoulders in public, hands pinning fine-boned wrists to the mattress in bed. They’ve both thoroughly enjoyed that shared secret, and the explorations, and the results.  
  
Right now, though, Sebastian’s a bit too wistful. Melancholy in the distant nebulae. Blue swirls tinged with longing. And no answer yet.  
  
This time Chris is the one who reaches out. “Hey. Talk to me. I’m here, we’ve done my day, what about yours?”  
  
“Oh…fine…we spent the afternoon running tests on algae…it’s more interesting than it sounds, I promise, it’s being grown in an organic matrix and in theory has components we can use for retinal protection from interstellar radiation…all right, that doesn’t sound terribly interesting, _nu face nimic,_ never mind.”  
  
In fact it sounds fascinating. Chris says so, and adds, “I like your retinas. I love your retinas. I love you. And you’re not okay, if you’re trying to tell me you’re not interested in space algae. I live with you, remember.”  
  
“When I’m home you live with me. _Mi-e foarte dor de tine._ I’m sorry, I’m just tired, don’t mind me.”  
  
Chris, who has picked up a fair amount of Romanian in the past three years, mentally translates. Sebastian misses him. Very much. And is weary enough, unguarded enough, to say so. In that tone.  
  
“Check your email,” he suggests, and then, because that might not be simple while the iPad’s occupied on that end, “wait, hang on—” and hops off the bed, runs, comes back. Sebastian’s stayed forlornly put, regarding this flurry of motion with gradual dawning curiosity. Chris waves the paper at him, getting breath back. “I can show you now. You have the digital version. But here.”  
  
It’s a quick pencil-sketch, based on one of Sebastian’s earliest joyful self-snapshots. Sebastian framed by a hatch, looking back at the camera, stars visible through a window. Sebastian laughing with vivid giddy excitement, other hand flung out mid-gesture: _look at this, look where we are, isn’t it FANTASTIC??_ That photo’d gotten countless shares and comments and mentions on comedy-news shows as an example of a man who loves his job. Chris, during his interminable day-long meeting, had pictured that smile and tried to capture it on paper, except in his version Sebastian’s waving exuberant hands at a little green six-tentacled extraterrestrial and very merrily trading stories about Star Trek reruns.  
  
Sebastian laughs. The laugh—thank God, thank the universe, thank everything—sounds less lonely. “Clearly you and I need to have a _Voyage Home_ movie night once I’m back.”  
  
“You and the space whales. I might have to be jealous. Seriously, though, what can I do? I’m listening.”  
  
“I’m all right.” With a one-shouldered shrug: acceptance, resignation, affection. “I love you. There may have been vodka earlier, over in the Russian section.”  
  
“Aren’t you…all of you…sort of not supposed to be drinking, up there?” This explains not the recognized existence of the homesickness but the fact that Sebastian’s letting him see it. “Don’t tell me you’re throwing parties and getting tipsy without me.”  
  
“Not even.” Sebastian grins. It’s a crooked sort of grin, located someplace between _I need you_ and _you make me smile_. Chris’ heart performs somersaults. Arabesques. Tap-dances. “Well. Perhaps a bit. When you’ve not been drinking at all for four months, two shots of vodka can be surprisingly potent.”  
  
“Special occasion?”  
  
“ _Da_. Yes.” Sebastian fishes around for something out of sight; paper rustles. “The Russian crew decided we should celebrate…Alexei’s wife had the baby, a boy…they brought the vodka, enough for two toasts, even. I did not ask about the source; I’m not certain I want to know. Also there was a poker game. You may be interested to know that we now own ten percent of any Russian space agency’s future interest in a terraformed Mars. Signed and witnessed, look.”  
  
Sebastian’s deadly at a poker table. Opponents often assume that he’s precisely as saucer-eyed and naïve and innocent as he looks. This assumption’s one hundred percent wrong.  
  
“Huh,” Chris says, not bothering to attempt to read distant Cyrillic script. “So you’re saying we should retire and raise your space whales on Mars.”  
  
“You and me and a house on a red sand beach.” Sebastian glances out at the stars, then back at Chris. “I do love you, you know.”  
  
“I know.” He does. With all his heart and soul, he believes that. Those words get them through the distance.  
  
They’d met three years and three months and six days ago precisely; had met at an airport Starbucks of all places, both travel-worn and rumpled and passing through. Chris’d been headed up to Pixar’s headquarters for an in-person story-development session; Sebastian’d been flying out to California for a round of talk shows and space-program promotion. Sebastian had been in line in front of him, ordering something chilly and hazelnut-and-chocolate-flavored and too sweet; Chris hadn’t been able to see his face, but had been idly appreciating long legs and slim waist and strong shoulders and coltish grace without any expectation of ever encountering their owner again.  
  
A different patron, shoving a chair around, had thumped squarely into the back of Chris’ distracted legs. When he’d lost balance, arms flailing clumsily through the air, Sebastian’d turned with absentminded swiftness and caught him.  
  
Their eyes had met. And the world had shivered. Seismic shifts and the tastes of coffee and cocoa in the air. And the heat of Sebastian’s hand resting on Chris’ shoulder.  
  
Three years later, whenever Sebastian touches him, Chris’ heart skips the exact same way.  
  
“I was only thinking about home.” Sebastian runs a hand along the observation window. Starlight through glass. Spilling across pale skin. Sebastian tans easily but loses the tan just as easily, and he looks more fragile than Chris knows he is, fairness belying trained muscles underneath. “That kind of night. Reminders of what we’re missing. I’ll be fine.”  
  
“Of course you will.” This is also true. Sebastian doesn’t mind being alone; Sebastian does mind feeling alone. But Chris is here. Chris is here, and so Sebastian never has to feel alone again.  
  
Chris knows those stories as well. The ones Sebastian doesn’t tell to inquisitive reporters and television personalities. The ones about being the new boy in a new American school, headmaster’s stepson with Dracula’s accent and enormous skittish-sapphire eyes and a love of imaginary otherworlds and a fierce need to make his mother nothing but proud.  
  
The ones about raw red nightmares resolutely kept private and unshared. The ones about too much feeling alone.  
  
They _have_ talked about getting married, once or twice. It’s legal now. They can. Sebastian tends to laugh, self-deprecating and rueful, at the idea: yes, of course I’d want to, of course I want you, I love you, but only if you want—I mean I know I’m not easy to live with, I know what my life asks of you, don’t decide anything now—  
  
Chris has already decided. Chris suspects he might’ve decided three years ago in an overpriced airport-terminal Starbucks. Chris has never been more decided about anything in his life. Sebastian will never _ever_ feel alone. Because Chris will be beside him. Because they make each other stronger, every day.  
  
“Of course I will,” Sebastian echoes lightly, not dismissing the concern but setting it aside. “I’m wonderful. Why are you still in New York? I thought you said you’d made plans. Family.”  
  
“Yeah. Tomorrow. And yeah, you are.” The family in question, however, is Sebastian’s. Chris is pretty sure they’ve already guessed, judging from the excitement when he’d called to ask about stopping by. He still wants to do this properly, though, in person. He’s not asking Sebastian’s mother and stepfather for permission, exactly—he’s going to ask for Sebastian’s hand regardless—but he does want their blessing.  
  
His own mother, when he’d broached the subject back home in Boston, had beamed at him and announced, “About time.” Chris, mildly insulted by this lack of reaction, had complained, “Seriously?” She’d patted him on the arm and told him how much she loved Sebastian, how much the whole family loved Sebastian, and also that said family had been keeping an ongoing list of potential venues and color schemes depending on the season. Chris, faced with this onslaught of relational enthusiasm, had collapsed into a heap of, “he _is_ amazing, I know, I don’t even know how to ask him, what if he says no,” and she’d handed him another plateful of lasagna and told him to just be himself and say the words.  
  
“Say hello for me. Tell your niece I may have a present for her. We’ve been experimenting with crystal growth in the absence of gravity. Some of them should be solid enough to make decent jewelry. Would she like purple, or green, do you think?”  
  
“Oh, God,” Chris says, “you’re gonna spoil the kid rotten, fuck, jewelry from space, that’s just unfair. The rest of us mortals can’t compete.”  
  
“I may have accidentally promised the pink one to Whoopi Goldberg the last time I was home. In my defense, it was far too early in the morning to be on any sort of talk show and I hadn’t had nearly enough caffeine. That is assuming they all survive reentry, of course.”  
  
“…of course,” Chris brushes past, because despite all the missions and all the triumphant returns his stomach permanently lurches at the combination of _survive_ and _reentry_. “So you’re gonna come back, and you’re gonna make every person on the planet fall in love with you all over again, with space jewelry, and—”  
  
“They don’t really—”  
  
“Oh yeah they do. Have you seen the comments on your videos? Half of them want to have your babies, and the other half want to hug you and send you tiramisu care packages.”  
  
Sebastian laughs out loud. Chris, sitting on their familiar bed with the lights flipped on and the coming sunset warm as a cloak on his shoulders, smiles. Success.  
  
“I do love tiramisu,” Sebastian muses, eyes dancing. “But the only _person_ I would like to have in love with me is you.”  
  
“Yeah, well, you’ve got that.” He kisses fingertips, holds them toward the screen. “Completely. So when you get back, what do you want to do? First?”  
  
“You,” Sebastian retorts promptly. “And then sleep. But mostly you. I miss your hands on me. At least we’ve finally got individual sleeping quarters these days, though one might wish for better soundproofing. And yes completely, _pentru totdeauna,_ forever.”  
  
“I miss my hands on you, too, kid.” He deliberately pitches his voice lower, seductive, purposeful; watches Sebastian lick lips in response, across distance and video pixels. “I miss my mouth on you. The way you taste, the way you sound…”  
  
“You on top of me,” Sebastian murmurs, eyes dark and intoxicated, drunk on need and galaxy-light and unregulated vodka. “You inside me…that’s not fair, you understand, I can’t…”  
  
“You can’t do anything about it? Not now? No, you can’t. You’ll just have to wait.”  
  
Sebastian’s inhale’s audible and deliciously aroused. “Oh—yes, Chris—but _you_ can, please, at least—”  
  
“Let you watch? We can do that. _If_ you can be quiet. Soundproofing, you said.” It’s part of the game, of course. And one that works, they’ve found, rather well.  
  
Sebastian nods, wide-eyed and eager as a kitten presented with cream. Chris smirks. Slides a hand inside his pajama pants, stroking himself to hardness beneath fabric. Sebastian lets out a frustrated little whimper. Chris grins, stops teasing, and shoves his pants down and arches his back, getting properly into it, putting on a show as Sebastian watches and wants, and loving the fact that Sebastian’s watching and wanting.  
  
He’d never been much of an exhibitionist before—he’s fine with arms over shoulders, hands on waists, sure, but this is something else again—and in truth he still isn’t. The spike of danger, the knowledge that he’s being displayed on the screen on the other end, sends shivers up his spine. But they’re not bad shivers. He trusts Sebastian; he can do this, can indulge the illicit guilty thrill of tempting fate, for Sebastian.  
  
Who’s got a hand out of sight and lips parted and wet, breathing fast. Sebastian won’t get off here and now, too much potential for that to go all kinds of wrong in a space-station environment, but _must_ be touching, tormenting himself more exquisitely than usual; must be touching but not making a sound because Chris made him promise to be quiet—  
  
Chris, on that thought, shudders and groans and moves his hand just _there_ , watching blue eyes track the motion. And he comes that way, abruptly undone on the soft broken catch of Sebastian’s breath.  
  
After, he swipes tissues across the mess on his stomach and sprawls across the bed, grinning at the camera. “Good?”  
  
“ _Esti incredibil,_ ” Sebastian whispers, reverent and pink-cheeked. “And I am terribly frustrated. I hope you realize that.”  
  
“Oh, I do. One more month, and then I’m tying you to the bed for at least three days. You didn’t answer the question. What do you want to do when you get back? I’ll take a week off.” Anything. Anything, anywhere. Whatever Sebastian wants will be perfect. And hence will also be perfect for certain words. A particular question.  
  
“Yes, please, about the bed. Can you take time off? Aren’t you busy thinking of a story?”  
  
“I’ve got a month to think of a story. Come on, tell me. Starbucks, you said. And blueberries.”  
  
“Yes…nothing dramatic…honestly I’ve missed being home. New York. Walking down the street. Trees. The scent of rain. Holding your hand. My piano and your guitar. I think I’m scheduled to appear on the Daily Show three days after I get back. Are you making plans for our first date?”  
  
Chris, whose plans as of now include Central Park, a picnic, hazelnut-infused first-meeting coffee, his guitar, a ring based on the topmost design on the dresser, and Sebastian wearing said ring on the Daily Show three days later, says, “Maybe?”  
  
“I do enjoy you making plans.” Sebastian yawns. “I should sleep…not that I want to go, but…”  
  
“You have very important astronaut work to do in the morning,” Chris says, and makes a shooing gesture at him: go rest. “Save the universe. Make space jewelry. Grow algae. Recover from the Russian vodka.”  
  
“We in fact have external maintenance scheduled.” Sebastian makes an apologetic face at him. They both know how badly Chris ends up torn between pride and terror at every spacewalk. “It should be simple. Solar panel replacement. Nothing we’ve not done before.”  
  
“Call me,” Chris says, and swallows hard, “when you’re back inside.”  
  
“I will. I do. Every time.” Sebastian’s eyes hold his. “I always will.”  
  
“I love you,” Chris tells him, curled around the laptop on their bed, stomach lingeringly sticky, heart overflowing. Outside on Earth it’s barely sundown; the summer days are drawn-out and humid and full of blue and gold. “So damn much. Go sleep, I’m not gonna keep you up before you have to—go outside.”  
  
“I’ll call you,” Sebastian promises. “As soon as we’re back. I love you, _inima mea._ My heart. Good night, Chris.”  
  
“You say the best things to me,” Chris says. “ _Te iubesc._ Love. Go to sleep, kid.”  
  
“Yes _sir_ ,” Sebastian tosses back, flippant salute softened by the smile in his eyes, and the video ends with one long eloquent fingertip reaching to tap the screen.  
  
That screen, on Chris’ end, goes dark. Over. But not empty. Chris whispers one more time, “I love you,” and he thinks that maybe Sebastian can hear him anyway, one last magical kiss on the verge of dreams. The stuffed monster regards him cheerfully from its pillow-perch. It concurs: Sebastian’s _definitely_ heard him.  
  
Central Park. A picnic. Blueberries and hot dogs from Sebastian’s favorite place and, yes, tiramisu. Sketches of the two of them, sketches of spaceships and mermaids and superheroes, sketches of New York streets and cityscapes, tucked into Sebastian’s coat-pocket and the picnic basket and the pages of favorite books, Asimov and Heinlein, the ones he’ll pick up first. The summer’ll be edging into autumn when Sebastian touches down, the world shimmering from emerald and cerulean into russet and gilt and woodsmoke. Sebastian likes the scent of rain, and will no doubt wear his favorite scarf, the sapphire wool one Chris bought him last Christmas, the one that’s as close as anything on Earth can get to the unmatchable shade of those eyes.  
  
A love song, Chris thinks. Something that’ll make those eyes smile, picked out on the strings of his guitar. And a question. And, he hopes, he believes, he’s just about positive, a yes.  
  
He flops onto his back and grins at the ceiling, throwing one arm out to cuddle the plush three-eyed monster, knowing he ought to shower, basking in the remnants of post-orgasmic afterglow plus the knowledge of delight in star-blue eyes, letting the evening spread itself leisurely out before him. Time to refine that topmost design to utter perfection. Time to make some calls. Time to collect the bits of sketchwork he’s been coming up with for the past four months; time to compose a few more. He thinks he might leave today’s out on the table. Waiting when Sebastian comes home.  
  
One month. And a question. The ceiling and the night and the ring designs practically hum with anticipation. Sebastian here in bed, waking up sleepy and naked and warm in his arms. Sebastian dragging him up onstage to sing Sinatra at a sticker-plastered local karaoke bar. Sebastian kissing him in the doorway, in the kitchen, in the bedroom, Chris’ hands buried in dark wavy beloved hair. A first date, another first date all over again. The sweetness of amaretto and cream and commitment on his tongue.  
  
One month more. And a lifetime of first dates, every time Sebastian comes home. A lifetime of Chris standing at his side. His husband the astronaut.  
  
The artist and the astronaut, he thinks, and has to laugh. A fairy-tale. A romance. It _is_.  
  
They both do like old-fashioned fairy-tales. Disney. _The Little Mermaid_ in particular. Love songs, Chris contemplates, and lifts his head up enough to glance at his guitar. Wonders, picturing that smile in blue eyes, how fast he can learn certain chords.


End file.
